U.S. Attorney revs up gun-crime task force in Memphis

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U.S. Atty. D. Michael Dunavant, at podium, discusses criminal indictments against 20 immigrants accused of using fake documents to get jobs at a news conference on December 13, 2017.(Photo: Daniel Connolly/USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee)

Guns are used in more than a third of robberies and aggravated assaults, but the effort to press back against gun-toting criminals eased in recent years across Tennessee, leading many criminals to flaunt weapons.

Now a move is afoot to press back in Memphis.

The new U.S. Attorney for West Tennessee said an anti-gun task force has been given new energy in Memphis and Shelby County to stem the widespread use of firearms in criminal acts.

“There became this notion that it wasn’t a big deal to carry a gun,” U.S. Attorney Michael Dunavant told The Commercial Appeal’s editorial board on Thursday. “We want to deter these gun offenses by reinvigorating the program.”

Violent crime has eased in Memphis since the heavy crime streak nearly three decades ago, but the city’s national reputation as a crime zone persists. A recent comparison of America’s big cities by Forbes, a business magazine read worldwide, ranked Memphis No. 4 in the nation with 1,583 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. This works out to almost 10,300 such crimes each year.

Since then, law enforcement agencies have committed 14 investigators and attorneys to the anti-gun initiative in Memphis and Shelby County called Project Safe Neighborhoods, up from a maximum of about 11 several years ago, Dunavant said.

Safe Neighborhoods was part of a national movement launched in 2002 but momentum slowed after 2010 as resources were diverted to other needs, he said. Between 2002 and 2015, the Memphis task force reviewed more than 28,000 incidents.

Dunavant said additional personnel were pledged after he reached out to senior officials at the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, Memphis Police Department and Shelby County Sheriff’s Office. ATF assigned two more personnel, MPD three more and SCSO two more.

The Safe Neighborhoods task force members meet routinely each week to review each crime case involving a firearm and examine whether a conviction in state or federal court could bring the maximum sentence. Some violations are treated more sternly in federal than state court.

Cases in which charges of drug use, domestic violence and other serious crimes coincide with guns get special interest. This includes drug cases in which the accused has no prior criminal record but was caught with a weapon, he said.

“We believe that person is dangerous,” Dunavant said.

The initiative is part of an anti-crime emphasis from the U.S. Justice Department that includes ferreting out criminals from other countries who commit crimes in the United States and reducing violent crimes such as car jackings and illegal gang activities.

Dunavant’s office has been funded for two more violent-crime prosecutors to work in Memphis and Jackson. This would bring the number of federal prosecutors in West Tennessee to 43 from the current 41.

Memphis’ spate of burglaries traces in part to criminals looking for opioids and other prescriptions as well as looking for weapons. These are used by the thief in the commission of other crimes or sold on a robust gun market that distributes firearms across Memphis and moves them to other cities, he said.

Although more than 300 million firearms are estimated to be in private hands across the nation, or about one gun per person, ATF computers now have the ability to examine spent ammunition casings picked up at crime scenes and tell if the casings trace to firearms listed in the crime data base.

Dunavant said this new procedure can help identify violent characters and prosecute them for gun offenses.